HYDERABAD: Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy is yet to make up his mind on the line he and other Congress leaders should take vis-a-vis YS Jagan Mohan Reddy while campaigning in the ensuing byelections for the one Lok Sabha and 18 Assembly seats.According to sources, Kiran is pondering over the suggestions given by his party colleagues at the constituency-wise review meetings held at his camp office here on Saturday that it is difficult to single out Jagan Mohan Reddy from YS Rajasekhara Reddy to train guns since people may not trust the party and might even imagine that it was trying to pull a fast one.The problem the chief minister and his supporters are facing is that if they attack both the father and the son, it will mean an indirect admission that the late YSR government was corrupt and those who were in his cabinet too were venal.“This is a sticky issue. But we will have to overcome it. As Jagan Mohan Reddy is more or less successful in staking his claim to YSR’s legacy there is no point in clinging it to as it may no longer fetch the party much dividends. Instead, it would be better for the party go for the jugular of the father and the son,” a source close to the chief minister said.But attacking YSR is easier said than done, admit some leaders. “The YSR Congress is waiting for the Congress to commit the same blunder so that its monopoly on YSR legacy will be complete,” a leader said. If any Congress leader trains his guns on the late YSR, people will bury the ruling party alive, a YSR Congress leader said. If they attacked YSR, they would lose for sure; if they did not attack YSR, then also they would lose,” he said.At present, Congress leaders are not forthcoming to attack Jagan, leave alone his father. This is because they want to play it safe and not hurt Jagan whose popularity is intact despite the CBI blitzkrieg and political onslaught from all around. If they hurt him now, it might become difficult for them to switch loyalties later if he emerges stronger.YSR Congress leaders keep claiming that after the outcome of the byelections for the 18 Assembly seats, there will be an exodus of Congress rank and file into the Jagan camp, and they assert that YSRCP’s victory is very certain.“Who would want to stay in a sinking ship?” asked a YSR Congress leader.After the constituency review meeting at the chief minister’s camp office on Saturday where it had been decided to approach the elections in a “ do or die” spirit, PCC president Botcha Satyanarayana addressed a public meeting at Payakaraopet in Visakhapatnam on Sunday where the crowd turnout was not very encouraging. There too, Satyanarayana targeted Chandrababu Naidu more than Jagan Mohan Reddy, not to speak of attacking YSR.
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